Wolves 1 RC Lens 3 - Liam Keen and Nathan Judah analysis - video Dailymotion

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Wolves 1 RC Lens 3 - Liam Keen and Nathan Judah analysis

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00:00Hello, I'm Nathan Judah, that is Mr Liam Keane. We're at the Bescott Stadium where

00:13finished Wolverhampton Wanderers 1, Lens 3. And that was, especially in the second half,

00:20pretty poor. I know it's pre-season, I know results don't matter, but there's plenty of

00:25warning signs there, aren't there, that Wolves need players and they need them pretty quickly, Liam.

00:31Yeah, I mean, if that second half performance in particular is anything to go by, Wolves need

00:36signings. We knew this anyway, of course we did, but that should be ringing alarm bells up top to

00:41say, look, this squad has got a good spine, it's got some very good players in it. As a squad,

00:48depth-wise, particularly defensively in that second half, not good enough. This team now,

00:54if you go into and play the full 38 games with this squad in the Premier League, it's going to be a

00:58relegation battle. I'm not saying they're going to go down, but it's a relegation battle without a

01:01doubt. You have to add to the quality in this team. Look, we've got John Arias to come still,

01:07we need to see how he's going to get on. You've lost Kunja, you've lost Ignori. Sarabia, I know we

01:13weren't massive fans, but again, an experienced player. Sameda, a very experienced player. Again,

01:18I know he's a little bit here and there at times, but a relatively consistent player. You have to

01:22improve on this team and so far Wolves haven't done that and we're two and a half weeks away

01:26from the start of the Premier League season and that's when you're going to get a performance

01:29like that. I think from Vito Pereira, he'll have mixed feelings about this. Part of him will be

01:35fuming and disappointed at the performance. The other half of him will think, well, this proves

01:40I need a bit of help. Why he hasn't had that help at this moment in time remains to be seen and I'm

01:46sure, hopefully, like you say, this will get people on the right side to get some plays in because it

01:52is desperate. The first goal and the third goal tonight, pretty much carbon copies. Continue down,

01:57Wolves is left, Lorne's right and Deeson crosses in, a near post finish, a far post finish. Not learning

02:03and when you look at one of those positions, you look at that left wing back slot. We had Hugo Bueno

02:07starting today. Rodrigo Gomez came on as well. I just wonder whether that's going to be one of

02:12the positions where they need to look at. I know everybody's got high hopes for Hugo Bueno, but

02:16at this moment in time, you look at that, you look at Hoover on the right-hand side as a right wing

02:20back. Those have got to be positions that they need to strengthen and strengthen with quality.

02:25Yeah, and they're two positions that we know the club are looking to bring additions in and for my

02:30money, I think Hoover and Hugo Bueno, sorry, have got good things about them and I like things about them

02:36for sure. However, I don't necessarily think they're ready to start. Maybe Hugo more than

02:42who. I know he's actually done pretty well in pre-season, but I think they need competition

02:45and they probably need some experienced players in those areas. Those two are areas we know they're

02:50looking at and they have to bring players in, in my opinion, as well as another midfielder,

02:54as well as another forward. You tweeted it towards the end of that game. Wolves finished today's game

02:58with Manetzi and Tawanda Turewa as the two midfielders. I mean, that is not good enough. So you

03:03have to bring in another midfielder as well on top of that. I know there was a little bit of a mix

03:06of match with players and moving players around, but still, if you end the game with that midfield,

03:12again, it should be alarm bells. It's important to note that, and I know some fans will think that

03:16nothing's happening. They are trying to bring players in. It's not that they're sat there not

03:20trying to bring players in, but the speed of it has not been good enough. And again, you look at

03:25that and you look at the way that Wolves ended the game, the way that Wolves conceded in that game,

03:28and I keep using the phrase alarm bells, and I'm going to continue to use it, because that should

03:33be screaming and shouting, red flashing lights. You have to bring players in, and you have to

03:37improve on this team. Yeah, and look at your three centre-faxes, they're probably their starting

03:41main centre-faxes. I would do Doc and Totti Gomez with the captain's armband today as well,

03:46which was interesting. Talking point, I'm sure it'll be in an article, soon to come on the Express and

03:51Star, but two of those three played the full 90 minutes, and they're conceding goals. Dan Bentley will be very

03:57disappointed, I think, with the second goal tonight. Any shining lights? Gonzalo gets a neat finish,

04:02but apart from that, you look at the fans who have come here tonight, and they've gone away. I think

04:06a lot of them, when they've conceded the third, walked out of the stadium, and I know it's only

04:09pre-season, but like you say, the alarm bells are definitely there. Yeah, I think positivity can take.

04:13Hoover, I think first half got into some good positions, made some really nice runs. Again,

04:17I still think he would be a squad player, in my opinion, and we should bring a player in on that side,

04:22but Craig White's Duke, I thought he did well. I thought Bellegarde was creative and did well.

04:26Yeah, they're going to look good, set-pieces look dangerous. Yeah, set-pieces all through

04:29pre-season actually have been pretty good from three kicks and corners. I thought out on that

04:33left-hand side, not as a wing-back, but as one of the tens, I thought he looked a lot more

04:36comfortable. I thought Fairleaf did okay in bits, same with Larson in bits.

04:40Sucked it in and out of the game, I think. Yeah, otherwise the other one that I would give

04:43a little bit of praise to was probably Giao Gomez, put himself about, I thought looked after the

04:46ball well, got stuck in, a little bit of needle here and there, a couple of niggles with a few long

04:52players, but yeah, you can't take massive positives from it. There are obviously positives within

04:57there, we'd be not objective if we didn't say that, but the issues are glaring and there for

05:04everyone to see and this team needs help. Vito Pereira needs help. They need help and they need

05:09first team help, they need first team starters. You know, I think on the bench and some of these

05:14players that really are bench players, they're squad players, but they're not starters. And the problem

05:19you've got, Liam, is that when you've got, yes, you've got a good span, yes, you've got four or

05:23five superb players, when that second half, when Andre goes down and it looks like, oh my god,

05:29is he really hurting himself? And everybody's just absolutely bricking it, because you know that

05:34if you lose one of those players, and it could happen in the season for multiple weeks, there's

05:38no replacing there, there's no one who can come in, and so you've got to have some quality in depth,

05:43strength in depth, because goodness me, if they'd lost Andre tonight for any length of time, then you're

05:48struggling to start the season, aren't you? Yeah, he's one of those, as you say, four or five players

05:52that straight away, if you lose him, it has a massive impact on this team. In many ways,

05:57particularly with Andre, because they don't really have another number six in this squad.

06:02It's an area that we know they want a midfielder, in my opinion, it should be a six that comes in,

06:06because Bellegarde can play as an eight, Messi can play as an eight, Xao Gomez can play as an eight.

06:10Of all those players, Xao Gomez is probably the only one that you could say, right, you can be a six for a game or

06:14so, but it's not an ideal situation, in my opinion. So with Andre, yeah, he's one of several, I mean,

06:19Agbedou would be another, Larsson would be another, Xao Gomez, there's these players through the spine

06:24of that team that you lose one of them, God forbid you lose two or three of them, this team look very

06:29weak. There is that strong spine there, there is quality players there, but if they perform like

06:33that at the start of the Premier League season, they're going to get battered by Man City.

06:38Again, we've also got to put context around it, it is also pre-season.

06:40They've got two more pre-season games left. They've got two more games to go, I actually thought they

06:43started pretty well tonight, the intensity was better, the start of the second half was slightly

06:47better up until they conceded, but then it goes into a lull again. So, slowly they are building up,

06:53they're not peaking yet, so hopefully there should be more to come in these next two games against

06:57Girona and Saltovigo, but we have to judge what we've seen so far, and that performance wasn't good enough.

07:02No, it wasn't, and look, this is basically the start of the game, Vitor were the strongest

07:06line-up at the moment, and John Arries is going to be training, as you tweeted on before the game,

07:10so he's going to be there, so obviously he's going to slot into this side, but at this moment in time,

07:13that was the strongest line-up, and I know there were changes. In fact, six players came off the

07:17pitch and five players came on at one point, which was a little bit farcical before Tawanda Turewa came

07:20on. It's just not a good look at this moment in time, and you can understand the fans that are

07:24frustrated. Yeah, without a doubt, and they've got every right to be. It's important that we try and

07:28convey the right message, because as we say, the club are aware of what is needed, the club are working to

07:34make those players a reality. There's lots of clubs that are struggling to bring players in, Everton,

07:38Palace, West Towns, loads of clubs where the managers aren't happy, but that doesn't make

07:41it easier for us, or easier for Wolves fans to digest it, because regardless of what's happening,

07:46and I know the competition for getting players, I know bringing the right players in, the right

07:49characters are all important things to consider, but we're at a stage again, at another summer,

07:56where we're two and a half weeks away from the season starting, and Wolves have brought two players in,

08:00and they've got glaring gaps in the 11, not just in the squad, and that's where the massive concern

08:09and criticism has to come from. They have to try and address that as soon as possible.

08:13So schedule-wise, we fly to Girona on Friday. Friday morning we'll do the podcast Friday afternoon

08:19from Spain. Saturday we'll be with the team training, hopefully our first look in the flesh at John

08:24Arias, so I'm looking forward to that. He's training tomorrow morning with the team for the first

08:27time, then flying to Girona with the team. Correct, and I'm sure that the fans who will be going out

08:31there will see him play some part on Sunday evening, but yeah, plenty of work to do,

08:38plenty of work for us to do, and plenty of work for Vito Pereira and Geoff Shee to do.

08:42It's finished. Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 launch 3. For all the post-match reaction,

08:45make sure you log on to expressandstar.com.

Wolves 1 RC Lens 3 - Liam Keen and Nathan Judah analysis

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